Contemplation

Hou, O my Grief, be wise and tranquil still,
The eve is thine which even now drops down,
To carry peace or care to human will,
And in a misty veil enfolds the town.

While the vile mortals of the multitude,
By pleasure, cruel tormentor, goaded on,
Gather remorseful blossoms in light mood
Grief, place thy hand in mine, let us be gone

Far from them. Lo, see how the vanished years,
In robes outworn lean over heaven's rim;
And from the water, smiling through her tears,

Remorse arises, and the sun grows dim;
And in the east, her long shroud trailing light,
List, O my grief, the gentle steps of Night.

Charles Baudelaire

Charles Baudelaire was a renowned French poet, essayist, and art critic born on April 9, 1821, in Paris, France. Best known for his collection of poems Les Fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil), Baudelaire profoundly influenced the Symbolist and Modernist movements. He led a controversial life, marked by financial difficulties, substance abuse, and relationships with various women. Despite a relatively short life, dying at the age of 46 on August 31, 1867, his work has had a lasting impact on both French and international literature. Baudelaire's writing is characterized by its exploration of beauty, decadence, and the human condition.

Charles Baudelaire

To A Woman Of Malabar

Charles Baudelaire, Simple Poetry

On Tasso In Prison (Eugène Delacroixs painting)

Charles Baudelaire, Simple Poetry

To A Creole Lady

Charles Baudelaire, Simple Poetry

Allegory

Charles Baudelaire, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Calm

Have patience, O my sorrow, and be still.
You asked for night: it falls: it is here.
A shadowy atmosphere enshrouds the hill,
to some men bringing peace, to others care.

While the vile human multitude
goes to earn remorse, in servile pleasures play,
under the lash of joy, the torturer, who
is pitiless, Sadness, come, far away:

Give me your hand. See, where the lost years
lean from the balcony in their outdated gear,
where regret, smiling, surges from the watery deeps.

Underneath some archway, the dying light
sleeps, and, like a long shroud trailing from the East,
listen, dear one, listen to the soft onset of night.

Charles Baudelaire

The Little Old Women

for Victor Hugo

I.

In sinuous coils of the old capitals
Where even horror weaves a magic spell,
Gripped by my fatal humours, I observe
Singular beings with appalling charms.

These dislocated wrecks were women once,
Were Eponine or Lais! hunchbacked freaks,
Though broken let us love them! they are souls.
Under cold rags, their shredded petticoats,

They creep, lashed by the merciless north wind,
Quake from the riot of an omnibus,
Clasp by their sides like relics of a saint
Embroidered bags of flowery design;

They toddle, every bit like marionettes,
Or drag themselves like wounded animals,
Or dance against their will, poor little bells
That a remorseless demon rings! Worn out

They are, yet they have eyes piercing like...

Charles Baudelaire

Sorrows Of The Moon

The moon tonight dreams vacantly, as if
She were a beauty cushioned at her rest
Who strokes with wandering hand her lifting
Nipples, and the contour of her breasts;

Lying as if for love, glazed by the soft
Luxurious avalanche, dying in swoons,
She turns her eyes to visions-clouds aloft
Billowing hugely, blossoming in blue.

When sometimes from her stupefying calm
On to this earth she drops a furtive tear
Pale as an opal, iridescent, rare,

The poet, sleepless watchman, is the one
To take it up within his hollowed palm
And in his heart to hide it from the sun.

Charles Baudelaire

The Sadness Of The Moon

The Moon more indolently dreams to-night
Than a fair woman on her couch at rest,
Caressing, with a hand distraught and light,
Before she sleeps, the contour of her breast.

Upon her silken avalanche of down,
Dying she breathes a long and swooning sigh;
And watches the white visions past her flown,
Which rise like blossoms to the azure sky.

And when, at times, wrapped in her languor deep,
Earthward she lets a furtive tear-drop flow,
Some pious poet, enemy of sleep,

Takes in his hollow hand the tear of snow
Whence gleams of iris and of opal start,
And hides it from the Sun, deep in his heart.

Charles Baudelaire

The Harmony Of Evening

Now it is nearly time when, quivering on its stem,
Each flower, like a censer, sprinkles out its scent;
Sounds and perfumes are mingling in the evening air;
Waltz of a mournfulness and languid vertigo!

Each flower, like a censer, sprinkles out its scent,
The violin is trembling like a grieving heart,
Waltz of a mournfulness and languid vertigo!
The sad and lovely sky spreads like an altar-cloth;

The violin is trembling like a grieving heart,
A tender heart, that hates non-being, vast and black!
The sad and lovely sky spreads like an altar-cloth;
The sun is drowning in its dark, congealing blood.

A tender heart that hates non-being, vast and black
Assembles every glowing vestige of the past!
The sun is drowning in its dark, congealing blood...
In m...

Charles Baudelaire

The Love Of Illusion

When I watch you go by, in all your indolence,
To sound of instruments within the echoing hall
Suspending your appeal of lingering harmony,
And showing in your glance the ennui of your soul;

And when I contemplate, in colouring flames of gas,
Your pallid brow enhanced with a morbidity,
Where torches of the evening light a promised dawn,
Abd your alluring eyes, a master's artistry,

I think, how lovely! and how oddly innocent!
Massive remembrance, that great tower raised above,
Crowns her, and oh, her heart, bruised like a softened peach,
Is mellow, like her body, ripe for skilful love.

Are you the fruit of fall, when flavour is supreme?
Funeral vase, that waits for tears in darkened rooms,
Perfume that brings the far oases to our dreams,
Caressing ...

Charles Baudelaire